M.Y.T.H. Inc In Action by Robert Asprin

“You mean the King really did die of natural causes?” I whispers.

“So it seems,” Tananda murmurs back. “Now put a sock in it. I want to hear this.”

“… and you know I’ve always wanted to expand our borders just a teensy tiny bit, so I figured, ‘Why not give it a try?’ …”

“From what I hear,” the Boss interrupts, “the expansion goes way past ‘teensy tiny’ in anyone’s definition.”

“I know,” the queen sighs, deflatin’ a little. “It just seems to have gotten away from me. My advisors • – • you remember Grimble and Badaxe? … well, they keep assuring me that everything is fine . . – that as long as I keep lowering the taxes, the people will support me … but I keep having this feeling that I’ve lost control of …”

“Lowering the taxes while you expand your borders?” the Boss breaks in. “But that can’t be done! A bigger kingdom means more expense, not less! You still have the cost of local government, plus the cost of extra layers of bureaucracy to manage the local bureaucracies.”

It finally dawns on me what has been botherin’ me about this “lower taxes” thing every time I hear about it. I also remember that I had to take Econ. 101 three times.

“I know,” the queen sez. “I’ve been covering the extra cost from my old kingdom’s treasury, but that’s almost gone. Grimble keeps saying that things will level off eventually when the kingdom gets big enough, but …”

“It’s not going to happen,” the Boss sez, shakin’ his head. “You can’t beat the mathematics of the situation. You’re either going to have to raise the taxes or pull your borders back … or go bankrupt.”